THANKFUL: NC Unemployment Rate Beats National Average

RALEIGH – Many North Carolinians will have something to be thankful for this holiday – a job. The N.C. Department of Commerce announced Friday that the unemployment rate in the Old North State has dropped to 3.6 percent, now officially below the national average.

“The state’s seasonally adjusted October unemployment rate was 3.6 percent, decreasing 0.2 of a percentage point from September’s revised rate. The national rate remained unchanged at 3.7 percent.

North Carolina’s October 2018 unemployment rate decreased 0.9 of a percentage point from a year ago. The number of people employed increased 5,244 over the month to 4,810,957 and increased 63,798 over the year. The number of people unemployed decreased 5,911 over the month to 181,435 and decreased 39,887 over the year.

Seasonally adjusted Total Nonfarm industry employment, as gathered through the monthly establishment survey, increased 27,900 to 4,538,900 in October. The major industries with the largest over-the-month increases were Leisure & Hospitality Services at 11,500, followed by Professional & Business Services, 7,000; Trade, Transportation & Utilities, 4,500; Education & Health Services, 3,800; Financial Activities, 1,800; Other Services, 900; Construction, 600; and Manufacturing, 400. Major industries experiencing decreases were Government, 2,300; Information, 200; and Mining & Logging, 100. [… ]

Since October 2017, Total Nonfarm jobs gained 103,500 with the Total Private sector growing by 99,700 and Government increasing by 3,800.

While Gov. Roy Cooper and his Democratic supporters will try earnestly to claim credit for the last year of job gains in our state, a person would have to have had their head in the sand to not recognize the economically beneficial foundation Republican state lawmakers have been laying for the last several years, or the spike in economic confidence when that was complemented by the ‘America First’ presidency of Donald Trump.

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